Castle of Glass: Introduction
The turn of the second decade solidified, in many people’s hearts, the feeling that Pandora’s box has been opened, and it cannot be shut again. Our entire planet has been put in quarantine, elections are expected to include tampering, calling for the imprisonment, and even execution, of political opponents is mainstream, America’s unipolarity is no longer undisputed, and identities untenable just a few decades ago, from transgenderism to radical traditionalism, are now equally, if not more, viable than the traditional identities of “liberal”, “conservative”, “athlete”, and “book worm.” Before us, the castle of glass shakes, yet what happens after it shatters is uncertain.
When institutional structures teeter on collapse, the identities housed in, nurtured by, and reliant upon, those structures begin to teeter as well. New political forms are often accompanied by the birth of new identities, or are necessitated by new identities. Forms and identities expand, and contract, become more universal, or more particular, in accordance with how restrictive, or open, the existing conditions are. What new identities, and political forms, are possible after the dissolution of the old, is the outcome of cultural struggle, renaissance, and response to those trying to maintain the old structure.
Revolutionary America is a familiar example. As the colonies began to form their own identity, an identity independent from Britian, a political break, and formation of a uniquely American state, became necessary for this new identity to assert itself. At the same time as the American identity was forming, Britain had been engaged in, what amounted to, multiple world wars, and was steering into an economic depression. From a new identity to a new political structure, and from the teetering of the old structure to a new identity, the American Revolution gives us a well-known picture of how identity and political formation can be connected.
In pre-modernity, the privileged political structure was the empire, which was made possible by, and gave support for, a universal identity. To be a member of the Persian, Greek, Roman, Islamic, or Russian empire, it was not necessary to belong to a specific tribe, as it often was with city-states. Out of many tribes arose one people, who were bonded together by one religion. Sometimes this religion was loose, and incorporated local cults, like the Greek and Roman empires, other times the religion was exclusivist, as it was in the Islamic and Russian empires. When, during the early modern period, it became untenable to root political structures in religion, the new foundation became the nation, and thus the birth of the nation-state.1 Britain was the means for the British to exercise influence, France for the French, Portugal for the Portuguese, and so on. With the arrival of post-modernity, what political structure will be privileged is still unclear.
“Post-modernity” is a phrase known to all, but its implications are largely lost. Two significant implications of a post-modern world are:
a) the nation-state losing its privileged position as a political form
b) the complete erasure of “given-ness”
The meaning of post-modernity, and a thorough examination of these two implications, will be explored later, but a preliminary sketch can be given here. With increasing globalization, contact, and mixture with, different cultures, peoples, and religions, has revolutionized how the average citizen views the world. In times past, contact with other cultures was limited, often by trade, and location, and this contact was couched in a strong sense of self-identity. Britain and France may trade, or go to war, with each other, but those who participate in trade or war are necessarily limited to those who are capable of either activity, and both activities assume an other which to trade with, and war against. “Yes, there are people who submit to the Papacy, but they are across the channel, and are a different people from us.” “How could we submit to the Vatican? It would be un-English.” What happens, however, when there are millions of French Papists in England? What if there are millions of Hindus, Chinese, Africans, and Spaniards as well? They are all subjects of the Crown, vote, and even live next door. Now, what if this is America, and there is no crown, but elected offices that any ethnicity, and any religion could occupy? A state representing one nation, one people, is no longer existent, as states now accommodate citizens who share no ethnic heritage, no religious affiliation, and who have radically, and violently, different conceptions of what it means to be American, British, Greek, Lebanese, etc.
Furthermore, with constant, and repeated, exposure to different cultures, exposure that occurs at the neighborhood level, and even more intensely online, believing that one’s identity is “given”, that it “could not be otherwise”, or “the natural way of things”, is, save from radical isolation, impossible. Other religious beliefs, sexualities, gender identities, lifestyles, and general comportments, are always available, and possible. No one is born into an identity anymore. Everyone is, in a very real sense, a convert, for she has to make a conscious choice, even if that choice is to affirm what her parents handed down from birth. Claiming an identity to be anything other than contingent is impossible, and maintaining that impossible claim requires a Sisyphean effort, an effort that results in intentional isolation, and performative contradiction. Both the religious, and atheist who doubles down on the “given-ness” of his position, be he John Taylor Marshall, or Steven Pinker, is trying to resurrect something that is not sociologically possible. Identities are no longer given, but must be chosen, and chosen against other possibilities. I am not simply a Christian, but I am, and must be, a Christian rather than an atheist, Muslim, New-Ager, or neo-pagan.2
Not accepting that the nation-state, as well as given-ness, has faded away, leads to violent reaction, and performative contradictions. A cursory look at the proposals to sustain the nation-state will confirm this. What percentage of the American population would have to be deported to return to her original demographics? How many pure Anglo-Americans are even left? What eugenic programs would be needed to sustain the remnant population? Or, what is most important, from whence comes the will? It is easy, and comforting, to reaffirm what once was, and this includes the reaffirmation of truth. Our corporeal existence is subject to constant change, and we cannot make a flowing river into fixed star. Navigation must be done where one is, and not where one wants to be.
We are experiencing, on a global scale, what the Rum Millet felt during the end of Ottoman occupation. With the Ottoman political form about to fall, the question of new political form, and new identity, became the question. There were two paths available to the Rum Millet, Roman, and Greek identity. Roman identity consisted in an Orthodox universalism3, where the practicing Orthodox consisted of one people, regardless of if they were located in modern day Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, or Cyprus. Though differing in ethnic heritage, their shared Orthodox faith, and specifically the shared practice of hesychasm, allowed an international network to develop4, where the faithful could influence different local powers to benefit the Church. This Roman identity, where to be Roman was to be Orthodox, and to be Orthodox was to be Roman, could have continued after the Ottoman occupation, either leading to a rebirth of the (Eastern) Roman Empire, or the transformation of Greece into a “hub” for the “Hesychast International.” The other path, which the Rum Millet eventually took, was to embrace a narrower identity, advancing a nationalism based upon ancient Greek civilization.5 Embracing this narrower identity, the modern Greek people necessarily had to stake specific geographical claims, and create a necessary tie between land and heritage.
In place of the nation-state, if the analogy between Ottoman times and ours holds (a point we will defend later), will either arise a sub-state that pulls the levers of power in the emerging cyber-state, a state dominated by AI, metadata, and surveillance, or a new supra-ethnic nationalism will emerge, whereby political identity will replace the traditionally ethnic national identity, and seek geographical dominance. The latter can be seen emerging with Blue America: Democrats are coming to see themselves as a distinct people from their Red counterparts, and engage in nepotistic practices usually seen in ethno-centric immigrant communities. It must be stated that, while a supra-ethnic nationalism may more closely resemble the nation-state of modernity, nationalism founded upon political, or broad racial (white as opposed to Anglo, black as opposed to Haitian, Arab as opposed to Syrian) identity is a distinct phenomenon from the nation state, whereby a specific people, with a specific culture, finds voice through the state. It should also be said that embracing the sub-state model does not, by any means, imply the relinquishing of political power. When we examine the Roman alternative in our chapter on the Ottomans, we will how much influence a non-geographically committed group can have, and even the anti-fragility afforded to such a group on account of them not being geographically committed.
Both options will be considered, not only in terms of their political feasibility, but also according to how well they respond to the problem of given-ness. In light of the earlier chapters dealing with Derrida, Peter Berger, and how Heraclitus’, not Plato’s, conception of truth can provide stability after the loss of given-ness, and concluding that the sub-state is the most viable political form in post-modernity, we will provide a sort of “playbook” for sub-states, giving a vision for how they might achieve political power. Before concluding this work, consideration will be given to how you can assist the sub-state, regardless of your job, wealth, or social status.
Payne, Daniel P., and Derek Davis. “The Revival of Political Hesychasm in Greek Orthodox Thought: A Study of the Hesychast Basis of the Thought of John S. Romanides and Christos Yannaras,” 2006. 26, 27.
I am here using the language, and, partially, the conclusions of Alasdair MacIntyre’s presentation from the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture's 13th annual Fall Conference (2012). The full presentation can be found here.
Payne, Daniel P. “The Revival of Political Hesychasm in Greek Orthodox Thought: A Study of the Hesychast Basis of the Thought of John S. Romanides and Christos Yannaras.” 52
Payne. “The Revival of Political Hesychasm in Greek Orthodox Thought.” 52
Ibid, 69, 70.